“Women are one half of the world’s population, they deserve equal access to health, education, earning potential, and political empowerment. Ultimately, gender equality is a vital part of humanity’s progress.”

It is hard to overstate the terrifying impact that extremist groups like ISIS and Boko Haram have had using rape as a weapon of war. These groups claim that they have a God-given right to rape and abuse women because they are not Sunni Muslims.

These stories are sickening, but what is perhaps more appalling is the disenfranchisement of women in even the most developed Middle Eastern countries.

The question remains, why do their governments and religious leaders rob women of their human rights?

Is their religion incompatible with equality between the sexes? If so, how can secular nations push for women’s rights while respecting cultural differences?

Museums aren’t exactly play spaces, but often the scenery is too tempting to do anything but. In the previous series, we jumped inside of paintings. For this one, we jumped in front of them. All photos were shot on-location at The Whitney.

In front of Charles Ray’s “Boy”

In front of Edward Ruscha’s “Large Trademark with Eight Spotlights”

In front of Fred Wilson’s “Guarded View”

In front of George Segal’s Walk Don’t Walk

Featuring Jeff Koon’s “New Hoover Convertibles”

In front of Marisol’s “Women and Dog”

In front of Marisol’s “Women and Dog”

In front of Andy Warhol’s “Green Coca Cola Bottles”

Photography and styling by Annie Shepard
Modeled by Sophie Styles and Nona Morris

With a little inspiration from Elvis in Hawaii and a little more from the New York sunshine, we present Rockaway Hawaii- an homage to 1940s style and the pin up ladies that embody it. Shot on a gorgeous day at Ft. Tilden, it’s a nice reminder that one pieces are still sexy and every suit should be worn with a wink and a nod.

Frida Kahlo is Mexico’s most valuable export. She represents Mexico’s brand attributes- colorful, political, fiercely independent, and creative. While endemic corruption has weakened Mexico’s global image, it hasn’t tarnished the world’s reverence for their patron saint. The Frida Kahlo Corporation now lisences her image and art, selling it on everything from Zara T-shirts to beer bottles. While this influx of crap threatens to erode the myth of the artist, shows like the New York Botanical Garden’s Frida Kahlo Art, Garden, Life bring a bit of her magic world to you.

The goal of the NYBG show is to highlight Frida’s relationship to the natural world, but the real success is its ability break down the fourth wall between her and her audience. Our eyes suddenly see the same blue, touch the same cactus spikes, and smell the same flowers that she did.

We are no longer looking at her paintings, we are in them.

This past spring I visited Frida’s Casa Azul and Studio, and must say that I could picture myself living her life. I have always been drawn to her artwork and her stories for both their introspection and well, their fashion.

Frida has always been a fashion icon, making a unibrow and mustache somehow look incredibly sexy. She used clothes as a way to convey her pride in Mexico’s traditions and to hide her physical imperfections brought on by polio and a bus accident. The more her health failed, the brighter and more attention seeking her garments become. They were truly a form of her self expression.

I, like many others- have tried to steal a bit of her magic. Even if it was just smoke and mirrors, wearing those flowers and dresses, took me out of the Bronx in 2015 and into the world of Coyoacan in the 1930s.

]]>http://neonmamacita.com/the-earth-is-flat/feed/0A&F Quarterlyhttp://neonmamacita.com/af-quarterly/
http://neonmamacita.com/af-quarterly/#respondThu, 09 Apr 2015 04:14:58 +0000http://neonmamacita.com/?p=4454The A&F Quarterly makes the lookbook models of today seem, well, castrated. Muted pastel colors, dull stares, and oily hair are all very fashionable now but they lack the arousal that teenage sex can bring to a pair of jean shorts.

Abercrombie and Fitch started publishing A&F Quarterly in 1997 as a semi-annual, semi-editorial, semi-pornographic magazine. But why? Well, basically street cred. When you’re selling $100 branded t-shirts, you better have a brand that people want to wear.

But let’s be honest, the A&F Quarterly pushed it farther than expected- past simply marketing and into space that re-defined what branded content meant. They were able to do this because of Bruce Weber.

His photos read like the culmination of everyone’s sexual imagination – a bacchanalian dream. The shoots are tied together by loose narrative threads: it isn’t just a boy and a girl (or any homo or hetero combo out there)- it’s a substitute teacher and his student, a quarterback and his wide receiver, an entire group of friends on a camping trip- all indulging in foreplay. It is Weber’s embrace of American fantasies that I so love, why pretend that we want to read War and Peace when what we really want is Fifty Shades of Grey?

The A&F Quarterly introduced us Rococo Y2K, but while budding sexuality of Rococo was omnipresent in A&F, the restraint was not. This was the last time a national brand really took an editorial risk. Nowadays, while brands might fill our Instagram feeds with food-porn and camping-porn, we might just need some good old porn.

How did you begin experimenting with needlework, what draws you to it?

I started using it when I was in my first year at university. Before then I was very much a painter but at university I came across, and shared a studio, with some amazing painters and knew I didn’t want to be in competition with them. Also, university taught me that ideas were just as valuable as skill, and thread was the best way for me to explore my ideas.

The inspiration came from cross-stitch pieces my grandmother and her sisters had made many years ago before I was born. I remember they filled my grandmother’s house when I was growing up and I was always fascinated by them.

When did you start working with woven magazines?

The woven technique is also something I started exploring while at university but stopped for a few years when I was more focused on the stitching. I picked it up again in 2010 and it is now an integral part of my practice. It’s such an interesting way to distort images and viewers are often surprised when they realise it is handmade rather than done digitally.

Why do you explore fashion imagery, as opposed to traditional art or advertisements?

Fashion and the whole industry that goes with it (publications, advertising, and models) has always been something that interests me. I think it’s because often young girls are direct in that way either through their own curiosity or because their peers tend to be interested in it. I remember being 15 and buying my first issue of Vogue and just being drawn in by the beautiful imagery – the people, the clothes – everything was beautiful- it was like an escape from everyday life.

Nowadays I’m more interested in what fashion means to women and what it does to us – is it empowering or objectifying women? Does it really do our gender any favours or does it encourage us to look a certain way and spend money we don’t have on things we don’t need?

Many of your pieces have a strong sexual element- do you think fashion and sex are inextricably connected? How do they relate in your work?

I do believe they are inseparable. I believe we like fashion because we – both men and women – want to look and feel a certain way, we want to feel good about ourselves, and we want to feel desired.

I believe porn and fashion have similar issues when it comes to women – is it empowering or objectifying us?As a feminist, where should I stand on this? Again, I don’t think it’s a black and white issue and these are the only two industries where women tend to earn more than men.

The connection between fashion, porn and embroidery, traditionally a female past-time, are of significant importance to my work as a woman as I see it as a way of empowerment.

You’ve done some great collaborations with photographer David LeDoux- can you talk a little more about those pieces, the partnership, and your process of working together?

This project was a real favourite of mine because the images were taken specifically for me to work into. Alexandra Birchell-White, the editor and brains behind Aie Magazine approached me in 2013 to work on this project with David Ledoux for issue 5 of the magazine, called ‘The Sweat’ issue.

Ledoux arranged and did a fantastic shoot and these images really have this fashion/sex aura about them. They are both shocking and romantic.

The cut-outs are a way of removing the obvious sexualised parts of the models body – much of her skin, breasts and identity. Looking at these images, you don’t really see anything but one nipple, but the suggestions of what was taken away and what was left

So much of your work lives digitally, but the process is anything but- do you feel like something is lost in that transition?

People do relate to the physical pieces differently because they can see the thread and the embroidered pieces are tactile. Of course this is lost in the digital world but I feel it isn’t detrimental to the overall message or the work.

The Internet is how I get my work out there and it’s the place that most people will see my work. It’s enabled me to work as a professional artist and allowed me to reach an international audience.

Galleries are wonderful, I really enjoy exhibiting because viewers can see that these are one of a kind handmade objects but in galleries only a handful of people would see my work. They both have their drawbacks and perks.

What’s next for you?

I just finished working with Petronio Associates on a number of images for the Le Bon Marché Christmas Catalogue.

I went to Paris in September to be on the shoot. Ezra Petronio and his team photographed Audrey Marnay in clothing for Gucci, Dior, Prada, Celine, Givenchy, MiuMiu and other brands available from the store. The catalogue is available in store now or you can see the images on my Instagram feed: Instagram.com/ingejacobsen.

2015 will be an exciting year – I have a number of projects and collaborations in the pipeline but you’ll have to keep watching to see what happens next.

Inge Jacobsen is a textile artist hailing from Galway, Ireland and now works and lives in Sussex, England. Follow her on Instagram @ingejacobsen and visit her website at Ingejacobsen.com

“A man went looking for America… and couldn’t find it anywhere.” 1969 tagline for Easy Rider

These images are meant to represent what the Easy Rider’s heroes would have encountered on their journey: a trip through time, space, neon, and sin.

In Easy Rider, Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper are a couple of aimless rebels on a journey from Los Angeles to New Orleans riding high on a pair of choppers and a bag of grass. Dressed to the nines in hippie Americana, they begin their ride to the soundtrack of Born to be Wild and finish to the tune of Don’t Bogart that Joint. Along the way, the American Southwest stretches out in every direction.

The American West is a loaded topic. It used to symbolize Manifest Destiny, the fateful obligation of American settlers to continue their westward expansion while bringing freedom along the way. Now it largely represents suburban sprawl and contentious water disputes. But when our Easy Rider heroes set out, freedom just meant an open desert highway.

Their journey took place when America was being flattened. In 1969 more Americans had cars than ever before and the geography of the country was catching up. The 1956 Interstate Highway Act meant cities were now built for cars rather than people. Fast food restaurants and motels popped up along highways, and these nondescript buildings relied on brightly lit signs to attract the motor vehicles whizzing by. McDonald’s told customers to “Look for the Golden Arches”.

In 1972, the architectural theorist Robert Venturi visited the Las Vegas to study how the American landscape was changing. He published the seminal Learning from Las Vegas: The Forgotten Symbolism of Architectural Form that essentially defined modernist architectural critisism. In his excellent essay on the history of Neon lights in Hong Kong, Keith Tam summarizes Venturi’s findings, saying, “When buildings are indistinctive and human activities are hidden from view, bigger and more exaggerated signs are needed in order to attract people’s attention and to strengthen the ‘sense of place’, especially when experienced from a moving vehicle, as in the case of Las Vegas in the 1970s.” These signs represented the new architecture of communication and iconography of consumption eptizomized by the Las Vegas strip.

But Vegas is not just signs. It’s the city with the tagline “What happens Vegas, stays in Vegas” where the implication is that you are doing something either immoral, illegal, or both. In developing this piece, I sought to capture the sense of anywhere-ness with iconography of sex that embodies Las Vegas. So throw on some tunes, rev up that engine, and take an Easy Ride.

Credits
Design and Animation by Annie Shepard
All images are found objects from a variety of sources
Art concepts paraphrased from Keith Tam and Robert Venturi